


Lyrically in Love

by prettywordsyouleft



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/M, Fluff, Songwriting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 13:28:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16954935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettywordsyouleft/pseuds/prettywordsyouleft
Summary: Yixing had employed you to help him with his English diction with his upcoming album. What you hadn’t expected was the lyrics you were working on would draw you into a giddy world of imagining Yixing loving you.





	Lyrically in Love

“Hey, are you ready for another session today?” you asked, knocking lightly on the studio door you had just opened. The man sitting alone at the desk turned to see your arrival, smiling brightly at you.

“Of course, I’ve been waiting for you to arrive!” he replied genuinely and you bit at your bottom lip to dampen down your elation, crossing the space until you were positioned in the chair next to him.

You had been working with Zhang Yixing for three weeks now, helping him translate his songs into English for his upcoming double album release. Although he knew sufficient amounts of English to speak the language, he lacked a deep knowledge of emotive words and you had been employed to help him produce the English versions of his songs on his NAMANANA album.

At first, you had assumed this would be a translation job. Take the original lyrics and put them into the most logical sentence structure. But Yixing hadn’t wanted that. He desired to know what he was singing, to understand why the words were in the order they were and put each song together with the same energy he had with the Chinese versions. He didn’t ask you to write his songs, he wanted you to assist him in writing them. It was pretty admirable, and you had quickly found your teamwork was effortless.

Yixing asked a lot of questions. He wanted to ensure his thoughts were expressed fully in each song, and that he knew exactly what you meant. And you helped him with completing his vision, tweaking the lyrics with him until they were perfect. It was into the recording booth from there, your native English pronunciation being mirrored through his attempts. Each song had a demo track completed before you moved onto the next one.

It was an exciting environment, but it also came with some complications.

Working in the music industry for as long as you had, you knew lyrics could hold vast meanings and normally you didn’t blink at the racier ones. You knew romantically brazen lyrics were popular in worldwide music trends currently, and Yixing was aiming to do something similar with NAMANANA. His feel-good music was great, and the lyrics were even better. He planned to make all his fans fall further in love with him with these songs.

The problem was as you invested your energy into expressing the emotions he wanted in his lyrics, and he himself spoke of them in great detail, you began to  _believe_  them. The lyrics set up this idyllic world where Yixing was seducing you with his magical words, falling in love with you, confessing how he felt and then spending forever with you. Every song backed into the next, not one was really full of any angst. They were love songs listing what he wanted to do with you, and you were stupidly struggling to not drown within the lyrics.

It didn’t help that his personality was gentle and comforting. You didn’t feel the awe of working with someone incredibly famous, he had gone to the effort of making you belong in this studio just as much as he did. There was no difference between you, both creating music with the lyrics you worked on together.

It was crazy to think that three weeks had been enough for you to feel something toward Yixing that you knew was going to affect the way this album was being produced.

“So today, let’s look at Flavour, okay?” he suggested, pulling open a tattered book that literally held all his thoughts and secrets. You had become privy to the contents of the pages, smiling at some of his endearing thoughts he had jotted down in between sessions. Today was no different, your index finger pointing to his thoughts about how to express a Chinese saying into English with confidence. You helped him with it before he turned to the lyrics for Flavour, your mood jovial until you cast your eyes over the lyrics.

Sure you had heard this song in Chinese before once, in your initial meeting with Yixing. But he didn’t let you take home the samples, wanting the lyric writing to happen only when you were both together. Reading over the page, you gulped at how difficult this song would be for you. It was another love confession song, asking about how to become more than what you were, and how to love him back.

You sighed; it was going to be another long day.

 

“Try that last part again,” you asked later into the night. The lyrics had finally come together and Yixing was keen to get into the recording booth immediately, testing out how it sounded in English. And the first few runs through sounded okay, but there was something missing. It happened around the second half of the chorus, and you needed to hear it over again.

“ _I wanna be the one, I wanna be loving you_ ,” he started singing again and you tried not to take the words to heart, this whole part of the song was your favourite. His tone was earnest and you could hear that he meant it even if it was just a song.

That’s what got you in this mess in the first place, Yixing might have not known all the words in the beginning, but he sure knew how to make each one feel like they mattered.

Like you mattered.

“Don’t stop,” you said into the room and he did just that, his eyes widening. You frowned. “What?”

“Come in here,” he instructed and you sighed, picking up the remote control you needed to turn on the recording if you needed it whilst you were in there and headed into the booth. After closing the door, you approached his side that he welcomed you to and then he grinned. “This is what the song is missing. Undertone adlibs. Say it again.”

“Say what?”

Yixing smiled. “What you said just before.”

“Don’t stop?”

“Yes, that!” he scribbled it down onto the paper in parts you hadn’t added anything to then he pointed at the mic. “Say it into a recording.”

“What, why?!” you asked suddenly, shaking your head rapidly. “I write things, I don’t  _say_  things.”

“Just do it for me, please?” His warm eyes were begging you and you literally had no ability to avoid his request when he looked at you like that. Grabbing the controller from you, he put the song on playback and then gave quick instructions before he started singing, pointing at you when it was time to say it. You completed the task shakily and he gave you a look, rewinding the part and making you do it again. When the undertones were established, he grinned at you, giving you a high five and shook your hand within his.

“We make a great team, Y/N.”

“Yeah, we do,” you murmured, nodding softly. “You’ll get someone else to do that outside of the demo, right?”

“No,” he answered, his brows knitting together. “Your tone is perfect next to mine. Just like your lyrics are.”

“But not me,” you added, soon realising you said it out loud. You clamped a hand over your mouth momentarily and shook your head. “I didn’t mean that.”

“Yes, you did,” he countered, still smiling.

You were annoyed that he was amused with your slip up.

“I’m going to head back out there,” you mentioned, needing to step out of this hazy booth, away from him, and back to being professional.

You were a songwriter, a song translator. Not a singer or a voice in the background of a song. You had no place in this room.

Before you could get far, Yixing’s arms wrapped around you from behind, halting your movement.

“ _It’s so wrong, but never stop. We can’t be friends, you know we’re just wasting our time,_ ” he sung softly into your ear and you shivered before wriggling in his grip a little.

“T-there’s nothing wrong with that line,” you mentioned, now aware of his hands rubbing lightly over your sides.

“ _You can see it in my eyes tonight, don’t be afraid to say what’s on your mind_.”

“Yixing-”

“ _I will be there to love you, tell me how can I make you mine_?”

“Stop, please,” you begged, and his arms loosened around your waist enough for you to turn around. You gazed up into his eyes that were staring back at yours, his face otherwise void of recognisable emotions. You sighed. “That’s not funny. If you need to find the right way to feel these emotions, you need-”

“I already know how they feel,” he mentioned firmly, and your mouth hung open with your unfinished sentence before you snapped it closed and nodded once.

“Right well then you can sing them when you’re ready to record the album officially, that’s great.”

“Y/N, everyone says I’m one of the most clueless humans ever at times. And I can be, but you’re so blind right now it’s rather amusing.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Okay so they’re lyrics we’ve been working on, I guess you would take them like that. But when a guy takes you in his arms and utters words like that, do you really think it’s because he’s being professional with you?” Yixing tilted his head to the side and played with a small smile on his lips.

You were shocked. Had he just insinuated he actually wanted you to  _answer_  those lyrics. Right now?

He even nodded as if he heard your thought process.

“You like me?” you asked and Yixing blushed as he nodded again. “Me?”

“Yes you,” he confirmed, stepping closer again. “It’s not only you affected by writing these lyrics together.”

“Me, though?” you asked once more and he chuckled, placing his hands on your upper arms again. You gazed up at him and sighed. “I’m dreaming. That’s the only logical explanation to all of this.”

“Well then, since this is a dream, why don’t you tell me how you feel about me too,” he suggested, biting down on his lip lightly, anticipating your words.

You were hesitant. Dream or not, you didn’t want to fumble through anything. You swallowed and then took a deep breath. “I like you, more than your lyrics. You’re kind and sweet and I’ve really enjoyed getting to know you Yixing. But your lyrics make it hard some days.”

“Because?”

“Because I want them uttered at me like you’re suggesting them to be,” you admitted and he grinned.

“I just did, and you reacted like you did!”

“Yes, but that’s because I didn’t expect you to!”

He nodded, able to see your point of view. He rubbed your arms in his grasp lightly. “Okay, warning. I’m going to sing to you again.”

He sang the entirety of the first part of the song until the point where he had gotten you to adlib before. You sighed and completed your part before he continued, his body now closer to yours. He didn’t get much further than the first time he sang to you, just passing the first chorus now he was impossibly close to you, and you could feel his breath fanning over your face. You added in another ‘don’t stop’ and he smiled, stopping on the lyrics about kissing and tasting you. The song fell apart then as his eyes honed in on your lips and soon his were brushing against yours.

The eruption of feelings made the colours swirl in the room and become more vibrant. This felt too real for a dream and it was only then that you realised that you weren’t daydreaming at all and this was actually happening. You gasped and this enabled the kiss to deepen, Yixing’s tongue flicking against your lower lip before he pulled back.

“You taste sweet,” he told you breathlessly and you couldn’t help but giggle, running your hand that had somehow wound up around his neck during the kiss, back down so you could caress his cheek.

“You’re right we can’t really be friends, not that we were in a position to be so in the beginning.” You smiled at his now swollen lips and pecked them lightly. “Definitely cannot be friends anymore.”

“So what will we do about the lyrics to come?” he asked honestly and you blinked. Yixing’s sly smile made you tilt your head at his knowing reaction. You tried to think of what he was meaning. “There’s more than just kissing involved in them.”

You blushed, diverting your gaze to his chest as he laughed.

“I’m kidding; I’m not going to rush this with you. In fact, we might find this album takes a little longer to prepare now. Lyrics might be a little challenging to get through without your lips finding mine.”

“I’ll have you know I’ll be very professional, Zhang Yixing.”

“I might not be as well behaved,” he said, sizing up your lips again. “You’ll have to try to understand, now that I’ve started, it might be hard for me to stop.”

His lips were on yours again and you kissed him back immediately.

You had given into temptation, and it was going to be hard for you to keep your mouth off his too. You only hoped that the lyrics you had to work on weren’t going to cause too much mayhem in this studio.

But it was a good thing the walls were soundproof if it did.


End file.
